Debt

Debt is a very interesting topic to investigate for your dissertation. You could choose to focus on the debt of a specific country or government or complete a compartive study of two. If this sounds interesting to you, maybe you could take a look at some of these examples:

Example debt dissertation topic 1:

As the debt is one that is owed to ourselves, thus the present level of government debt within the UK should not unduly concern us – A discussion.

Though the IMF warns that the level of government expenditure within the UK is unsustainable and threatens recovery, it is alternatively suggested by those on the economic left that government expenditure should be increased further to stimulate growth. Moreover, provided that expenditure is balanced in the long term by income, short-term excessive expenditure could be justified provided that eventually: G+iB≡T+ΔB+ΔH (where G is government expenditure, iB is interest payments on government debt (bonds, bills), T is tax revenue, ΔB is new debt issued (new bonds), and ΔH is new money (government borrowing from the central bank). Accordingly, this dissertation discusses these contrary approaches to debt management and budget constraints within the UK.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Carlin, W. and Soskice D. (2006) Macroeconomics: Imperfections, institutions and policies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hallet, A.H, Hutchison, M.M. and Jensen, S.E.H. (1999) Fiscal aspects of European monetary integration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mankiw, N.G. (2007) Macroeconomics (6th edn). New York: Worth Publishers.